


When They Fight & When They Sing

by witchoil



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Espionage, Eventual Smut, Jedi Ben Solo, New Republic Senate, Other, Pre-Movie(s), Reader-Insert, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchoil/pseuds/witchoil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re somewhere in your third decade now, and you have a good idea of who you are as a person. One: You are a senator, and believe passionately in the work you do. Two: Your mother was a rebel, and you have never forgotten that. And three: You are about to be in way over your head.<br/>--<br/>Leia Organa has come to the New Republic Senate to ask a favor on behalf of the Resistance and there's little chance that you'll refuse, despite the danger. She's also brought some backup in the form of her son, newly minted Jedi Knight Ben Organa-Solo. This is the story of what happens next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. As All Great Disasters Do

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back aboard, one and all, to the jolly old self-insert train! There's not a lot I can say that won't give the whole thing away, but please please please believe me when I say that this is definitely a romantic fic and we will get to the romance soon! I just want to do some setup first. As with the last one, this is kind of slow burn and there are a ton of OC's to fawn over. Who knows, Shouula may even make an appearance!
> 
> I'll be updating the rating as I go so nobody gets any false impressions, but I already have some of the E bits written, so don't fear, it's coming! Also, I'll mention again once we get there, but this is also going to be like the last fic in that the Senator is not gendered, but I'll be writing from the perspective of someone with dfab anatomy.
> 
> Five million hugs to my beautiful beta reader [Rachel](http://missredherring.tumblr.com), thank you! <3  
> \--  
>  **DEATH COMES TO ME AGAIN, A GIRL**
>
>> Death comes to me again, a girl  
> in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.  
> It's not so terrible she tells me,  
> not like you think, all darkness  
> and silence. There are windchimes  
> and the smell of lemons, some days  
> it rains, but more often the air is dry  
> and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase  
> built from hair and bone and listen  
> to the voices of the living. I like it,  
> she says, shaking the dust from her hair,  
> especially _when they fight, and when they sing._  
> 
> 
>   
>  \-- Dorianne Laux 

Sometimes at night, when you couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to, you’d call Yaske to your quarters and mull over how you’d gotten here. Not here in general, because that overwhelmed the both of you, but here specifically, with a blaster in the nightstand and datacards hidden in the fresher that could get you both killed for treason. How the hell had this started?

 _Easy_ , he’d say one night, fuzzy on wine and too tired to bother with his usual formality. _As all great disasters do._

 _How’s that?_ You’d reply, indulging his mood.

 _With a familiar face_.

 _And Corellian whiskey_ , you’d add.

_Stars, that too._

So you’d laugh at that until you’d found something else to laugh at, mining out the humor and finding ways to make it light. It was good. It helped you cope during those stretches when the others were off-world and you kept an empty bed.

 _And what about the rest of it?_ You’d ask, after a pause, with a small smile on your lips, begging his indulgence this time. _The part about—_

And Yaske would laugh, rolling his eyes, and say that he knew for certain from the very first day. He’d had his suspicions the first time he’d noticed the _looks_ , actually, but confirmed them that night.

 _Even with everything else?_ The thought seemed absurd, but made you glad, made you calm.

_Oh, especially._

\--

You were busy the day Leia showed up, you remembered. You’d been kept far too long in the Trade Council meeting and were too anxious for the vote that was happening after dinner to even be bothered to listen to Yaske – your loyal, whip-smart, occasionally pedantic aide – as he filled you in on the delegates you’d be “charming” over Likryt stew and overpriced emerald wine. Then a brush, the pleasant shock of a familiar face as you passed her in the hall.

“Your highness,” you’d breathed on the way past, desperate to stop and talk but aware that you simply didn’t have the time just then.

“It’s general, now, remember?” She’d said, with a teasing smile.

And then you’d parted, Yaske’s hand pressing gently on the back of your shoulder. There’d been some boring dinner, then a tense vote that neither passed nor failed but languished in the no-man’s-land of “no significant majority”. Then Dirrah, your favorite courier, showed up at your seat with an invitation.

 “Excuse me, Senator Solvhei, but I’m here on behalf of the General.”

“Oh?” You said, having forgotten the brush in the hallway, a tired hand rubbing gently at tired eyes. You’d had plenty of General callers over the last few months, more than you’d ever have liked to see in a lifetime. You’d think one would hear from another that it wasn’t worth bothering, but alas, the invitations would start whenever a new one showed up, so eager to make an “alliance” with a Kuati senator, transplant though you were. “Which one is it this time, Dir?”

If you’d been looking you would have seen Yaske’s eye roll, but you didn’t need to to know it was there.

“Organa.”

“ _That_ general.”

“Yes, Senator, _that_ general.”

“Not business, I hope? I can’t do another minute of business today.”

“Not at all,” said Dirrah with a bitten back grin, “it says here that her original message consists of only one word.”

“And what’s that?”

“‘Nightcap?’”

“Force bless that woman, I _do_ need a drink.”

Dirrah led you and Yaske up to the General’s quarters. Most Senators didn’t bring their aides on social calls, but Yaske was more than a business contact. Anything you needed to know he needed to know, too, and he was good company besides. Especially once you got a drink in him.

The sitting room was vast, by senate housing standards, but that only stood to reason considering its occupant. She stood regally at the window when you arrived, mouth curled up in her characteristic smirk that told you she might be reminiscing or mentally thumbing over a particularly satisfying requisitions report.

“General,” you announced yourself with a sardonic bow, letting the long sleeves of your senator’s robes scrape the floor and draw a semi-circle around your feet.

A pleasantly scratchy laugh escaped her at your mock formality and she returned with the bow of a superior in kind. She hid the habit well for the most part, but one could hear her favorite vice in her laughter: Hosnian Royals, favored cigarette of senators and Order commanders alike, so the rumors said.

“Eclann, it’s good to see you again.” The affectionate pat to your left cheek combined with her warm smile stirred you out of your dour mood and you could not help but cracking a reciprocal grin.

“Likewise,” you said as she wrapped you up in a tight embrace. She was shorter than you by a couple of inches, but you always felt like a child again when she hugged you. For all of her fury in the command room, Leia Organa was a very grounding person to be around. Space, you’d missed her, your legendary mentor.

“And Yaske, of course,” she pinched his elbow as though he was still the testy 16-year-old that had met her. And, in a sense, he was, just a little taller, a little more sharply dressed, and armed with an even larger vocabulary.

“It’s wonderful to see you, too, general. You’ve been away too long.”

She raised an eyebrow at that and inquired further with a tone somewhere between concern and satisfaction.

“The senators are getting a bit too comfortable in their chairs, I think. It’s been a while since someone was properly ousted.”

Delight at Yaske’s flattery passed over the General’s face, crinkling the edges of her eyes, and she ‘ahh’d in understanding. “I’m not sure if I’ll have the time for a proper coup while I’m here, but I’m willing to try.”

“So what was that about a nightcap?” You asked, unfastening the clasps at the collar of your cloak, ready to collapse into one of the large chairs and surrender to the sweet, woody call of the Corellian whiskey you knew Leia always kept stocked.

“So impatient,” she tutted, reaching back to pick up a heavy lowball glass from a nearby table and dropping it into your upturned palm, for all the world looking at you like a mother placating a fussy child.

“Never did deny it,” you countered and took a sip. Whiskey wasn’t your favorite drink -- always burned no matter what you put in it, always tasted a bit like dirt -- but it was a small price to pay for the company.

Leia shooed you towards the center of the room and you took the hint as she excused herself to commiserate with Dirrah just outside, probably deciding what to do with anyone who came calling. Though technically a courier at the disposal of several senators, it was understood that Dirrah worked exclusively under the Leia’s direction whenever she came to Coruscant and, curiously, no one ever seemed to complain. You set the glass on a low table and returned to fiddling with the tiny clasps of your formal cloak (the little ones at your waist this time, since your neck was free) and gave a rather informal groan at its complexity but eventually freed yourself and dropped the heavy garment unceremoniously on a chair. Taking the whiskey back in hand, you paused to look out over the room.

There, at the far end from the door was a wall of nothing but transparisteel, looking out over Coruscant. And obstructing the view, of course, was Leia’s massive desk. You scanned around counterclockwise, noting the handful of large chairs arranged in the middle of the floor and the door (presumably to the General’s private rooms) tucked into the wall near the windows. Further around, a built-in cubby in the left wall had been converted to a small but well-stocked bar, to suit the tastes of General Organa and her favorites at the Senate. Ordinarily Leia frowned upon such status symbols -- ornate crystal glasses displayed next to still more ornate bottles of spirit -- but a place like this necessitated some pageantry, and the fact that she played it off with her liquor collection rather than her clothes or her retinue, well, that said something of its own.

You took another sip of your whiskey, noting how quickly your glass seemed to have emptied, and looked about the familiar room. You startled. You hadn’t noticed the conspicuously large man standing next to the door, which was surprising considering that you must have passed within a foot or two of him. He was turned away, probably listening to Leia and Dirrah outside the door.

So, a guard? That was new. And his odd outfit... A mix of fabrics, but all in neutral colors: charcoal grey of different shades, mostly, leather boots, a hint of black at the collar. The form of it seemed oddly familiar. Long, loose sleeves hung from his crossed arms, which covered a V-shaped over layer that came together at his belted waist. And, _ah_ , that was the key. Hanging from his belt on his right side was a metal tube which you recognized to be a lightsaber. So not just a guard, but a _Jedi_ guard. It had been some ten or twelve years since you’d seen a Jedi, you knew, and even then it was only because General Organa had introduced you to her brother. You realized a little too late that you may have seemed to be staring and moved to introduce yourself. You wracked your brain for protocol -- what title was it Luke had gone by? And wasn’t there some phrase they sometimes used? -- but found that the closer you came to the Jedi, the less successful you were in recollecting anything useful. If you hadn’t been staring before you certainly were now. The whiskey – turning quickly into a pleasant electric fuzz in both your body and brain – was decidedly not helping.

He was _very_ tall, firstly (so tall in fact that, looking straight ahead, your eyes would meet with not his mouth, nor his shoulders, but his _chest_ ), and nearly as broad as the door at his shoulders. His hair was black and shaggy, pushed back from his forehead and long enough to curl around the bottom of his ears, and it framed his rather strange profile dramatically. Despite being free of your hot cloak you felt a tiny prickle of sweat forming on the back of your neck. But you ignored it with the mastery of someone who met strangers for a living and proffered a hand into the space that separated you.

“Hello.”

His look of concentration faltered, eyes sliding around to you a fraction of a second ahead of his face. Mild shock moved over his features like a shadow, as though he hadn’t expected to be seen, let alone approached. He did not take your hand. A little rude, you thought, but not unforgivable.

“I’m Senator—”

“Solvhei,” he finished, at last uncrossing his arms to take your hand in his for a formal greeting commonly exchanged between senators and those beneath them. “I know who you are.”

 _Snippy_ , you thought to yourself, noting that his greeting wasn’t a very welcoming one. But stars, if you didn’t like the way he said it, in a pleasantly deep voice that had a strange resonance to it, as if he were scraping the bottom of his register. The prickle at the back of your neck intensified and you feared you were about to break out in a sweat at your temples.

“Is that right? I’m sorry I can’t say the same, Master…” the question trailed and you wondered what was so funny about it when his eyes narrowed slightly and one corner of his mouth began to lift.

“I’m not a Jedi Master quite yet, I’m afraid. Just Ben for now.” He inclined his head and gave a silly-looking bow that you couldn’t help but feel was a callback to the ridiculous, sweeping gesture you’d made upon your entrance. The studied purse of his lips and quirked eyebrow as he looked up at you from where he’d bent confirmed your suspicion.

“I didn’t know that jedi were allowed to tease, Just-Ben-For-Now. Not terribly diplomatic of you.” You felt the flush of your drink rising to your cheeks but didn’t think on it long, too relieved at the prospect of potentially being able to hold a conversation that wasn’t complicated by five flavors of political intrigue. 

He straightened. “As long as I’m only a Knight there are a few things I can get away with.” This he said with a look that went straight down his (rather distinctive) nose and landed on you.

 _Wait a minute, was he implying…?_ You must have looked like a shorted out protocol droid, with your mouth hanging open and your eyes fixing incredulously on him.

This prompted a look of dawning horror to flit across his face (eyes widened, his lips went slack, almost pursing, and all of the minimal color went out of his cheeks like he’d just seen the ghost of Darth Sidious himself), but it dissipated into something more like blank embarrassment only a second later.

“I—” he stammered, “I didn’t mean, of course, to say anything that might imply…might be…inappropriate, Senator.” The panic radiated off of him in waves, and the way his expression constantly crumbled and recomposed itself before your eyes was almost worse than if he’d just looked terrified. “I hope I didn’t give any offense.”

Part of you wanted to laugh at his magnificent impertinence, part of you was mortified on his behalf, and another tiny part of you considered his offer-not-made. Confusion reigned, and for that reason you could not blame yourself for what nearly came out of your mouth next.

“Not at all. I’ve heard far worse—” At which point Leia ducked back through the door and distracted you enough for your whiskey-addled brain to catch up with your whiskey-addled mouth. _I’ve heard far worse from far less appealing_ was where that thought was actually going, but you had been blessedly, blessedly spared. You weren’t known for having a particularly reserved manner to begin with (“mouthy” was a pretty common complaint among the older senators that didn’t appreciate your enthusiasm), but apparently a long day and two fingers of whiskey was enough to make you a danger to yourself.

You saw this truth reflected in Yaske’s face when you caught his eye. It would have been nice to say that he looked stricken on your behalf, knowing your thoughts and tendencies nearly as well as his own, but far from it he wore instead an expression of mutinous satisfaction which wouldn’t make sense for quite a while longer.

Luckily Leia took your arm a moment later, leading you back to the middle of the room and peppering you with questions – how were the proceedings of the Trade Council? Had any new members been taken on in the last election? Was the Speaker still trying to court the Ryloth representatives into adopting his stance on “pharmaceutical licensing”?

And though you were loathe to get too into questions revolving around work, you indulged her, or rather found that you couldn’t bear not to. The proceedings were as dull as ever, no need to worry. And yes, there were two council members, both young and from the Core planets.

Leia interrupted you gently and asked, glass already in hand, if she ought to pour you another drink. This time Yaske did look quite stricken, but for all of his facial acrobatics you found you couldn’t muster much more than a “why not.”

“So the new representatives?” She plunked the glass in your hand and prodded you to continue.

Now it felt more like she was the one indulging you, but you didn’t let that stop you. One was a human who dressed sharply and had a somewhat _imperious_ air about them if the General caught your drift, the other a tall twi’lek with a mean grimace and some critical views on trade neutrality that you could get behind. You told her as much.

“As for the Speaker,” you went on, swirling the half ounce of whiskey left in your glass contemplatively, “well, you know how his courting goes.”

“Over-eager, under-practiced, and usually only satisfying for himself.” She had lit one of her Royals, and the startlingly blue smoke curled and uncurled around her fingers, suffusing her with a strange glow as the lights from the window winked behind it.

“Precisely,” you laughed. You hadn’t known how much you’d missed this familiarity or Leia’s crude and astute sense of humor. It was true that she took her work seriously, but the same had to be said of her friendships.

“Eclann,” she intoned, much more seriously this time, and you sat up in your chair. You knew that voice. That voice meant business. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

With anyone else – with Dirrah or Yaske, or even Korr Sella if the mood had really taken you – you would have argued. ( _You lured me here with the promise of a drink and a laugh, don’t ambush me with business. If it’s important it can wait, right? Let me enjoy the rest of my evening._ ) But not with Leia. You swallowed and set the glass down.

“Yes?”

“We’re at the end of our rope.”

“I know things are tight, General, but—”

“You have no idea how tight they are. We’ve been in the red for half a cycle. We’re at the end of our line of credit.”

“General…I’m not a numbers person. You know I don’t have those kinds of contacts.”

“I’m not asking you to steal for us.” And though you’d like to say that you heard condemnation in that sentence, you couldn’t, quite. Instead there was a certain stress weighing heavy on the “you” that told you all you needed to know. She knew you didn’t have those kinds of contacts, and she also knew who did.

“Then what?”

“I may not have the time to orchestrate a coup, but,” here she paused, sighing, pressing a thumb to the space between her eyes, “time is about all you have.”

 _In more ways than one_ , you considered uneasily, thoughts drifting.

“The Resistance is going to collapse without official, tacit support. _Monetary_ support. We’ve known this for a long time, but I’d always hoped it would sort itself out, that the Senate would figure that out on its own. Instead…”

“Instead it’s become the same Senate that bowed its head meekly to the Empire.”

“Yes. They think that keeping up this charade of neutrality will keep war from coming to them. That keeping out of the fight actually keeps the fight away.”

What she was saying was true, and you had known it for as many years as you’d been sitting on the Senate. It had started out as a quiet under-the-table support for the infant Resistance, a few ships here, a few credits there, and intel from New Republic sources whenever they’d wanted it so long as it could be traded it in secret. But as the specter of the First Order had grown and the veiled threats began seeping in through trade correspondence and diplomatic meetings, people became scared. The trickle of aid waned, and eventually all but dried up. At the time all of the representatives had felt they were doing the right thing – one small request is only that, after all, and well worth it if it keeps the planets under your jurisdiction from ever being darkened by the shadow of a _Resurgent_ -class star destroyer. But politics like that – the kind of appeasement that will solve the problems of a committee or make permanent difference in a vote – don’t work when the enemy only ate your favors like table scraps and grew and grew and grew.

Now, to say a single word on official stationary would mean all-out war.

But to say nothing at all would inevitably lead to subjugation.

The Empire would rule again, under a different name and with a different leader, but again.

You thought in your mother’s voice, how it had turned sharp one day when you were eight or nine and complained of all your history lessons. _You do need to learn this, Eclann, whether you want to or not. If we don’t learn about history we will never stop making its mistakes._ A heavy look fell over your face, and you would have bet that the anxiety rolled off of you practically in waves.

“Alright,” you said at last. You didn’t know what to do yet, how exactly you were going to fix this, but you would try. “Alright.”

“Thank you,” Leia breathed. She tamped the gilded butt of the cigarette out in an empty glass.

The next two minutes went by in silence as you considered the edge of your glass and Leia’s request. She leaned on the edge of her desk and watched you, looking sympathetic. Deep down you appreciated it, but at the forefront of your mind you thought coolly, _no need_. You were, after all, a politician. You would figure this out. In all likelihood _Yaske_ would figure this out. Then Leia lit another cigarette – she never chain-smoked, not unless it was something really band and— _oh_ , you thought, _oh shit._

“So there’s more.”

Half-sitting, half-leaning against the table once more, Leia crossed her left arm over her middle and put the elbow of her right in her hand. She took a drag and the look of sympathy in her eyes hardened, her collected, political speech dropping completely away. “There’s more.”

This time you did actually reach for the glass. You raised it and your eyebrows in a mock toast before downing the last half a shot.

“They’re building something,” she said.

You smacked your lips and set down the glass, giving a perfunctory, “what?” The question came out flat. Of course they were building something, they were always building something.

“We don’t know.”

A different sort of _what?_ echoed in your head, turned your voice and eyes sharp. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“They purchased practically a whole star system and no one has seen what they’re keeping there. We don’t know.” When the General repeated the words they came out harder around the edges, each word clipped indifferently short.

Your head swam. “Wait, wait, wait, you mean they’re not--?”

“No, they didn’t hire out the Drive Yards, that’s why you don’t know. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it themselves.” She took a long drag and added almost thoughtlessly, “or at least on a very long contract. Not sure.”  

“So.” Your already dry mouth was beginning to feel like a Tatooine desert. What did she intend to do?

“So this is the part where I ask you to do something you really don’t want to.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The money is coming from somewhere, their ability to even _make_ such a purchase is coming from somewhere. Somewhere in _here_ , Senator.”

“Wait a minute, you can’t be saying that you think I would ever—”

“No, stars no. But I need to know who would, who already does. I need someone here who is willing to find out for me.”

“You’re talking about…” And though you knew all of these half-formed questions and unfinished responses made you look even drunker than you felt you couldn’t find it in you to care, not really.

“Espionage, basically. Yes.”

Fear clawed its way up your throat and desperation tinged your voice. You felt small again, like you were 14 years old and the whole world had dropped out from under you. “Leia,” you let the title finally drop off. With what she was asking, you deserved to be able to speak to her as an equal – as the equal she had called your mother. “Leia, please, I’m not a spy. You know that’s not what I am.”

“Maybe not what you are, but,” she paused, flicked a piece of tobacco from her tongue, and looked down at her crossed ankles. She was a good commander, and no good commander liked ordering her troops to do something that they didn’t want to. You never thought you’d see that look yourself, directed so pointedly _not_ in your direction that marked you as its recipient. “It’s something you could be, Eclann. It’s something we need you to be.”

“No one else?”

“I never said there wouldn’t be others. But we need you, too.”

You swallowed heavily, eyes burning, and let accusation creep into your voice. “Why?”

This time she finally looked up, answering with the same edge, “You know why.”

And there were a million reasons… You occupied politically neutral territory as the representative of a trade center. As everyone knows, credits make the system cycle, and everyone who’s anyone will need a ship made someday. Even better: you were the Kuati representative on the kriffing _Trade Council_. But you were also young, a fact which some of the older, less idealistic senators took as an invitation to try buying you out. You never let them, of course, but by the time they’d learned you wouldn’t you knew was taking those offers.

But looking into Leia’s eyes you knew none of those were what she meant.

\--

_“Princess Leia is so cool, mom, isn’t she so cool?”_

_“She very much is, baby. The coolest.”_

_“How did you start being friends with her?”_

_“The same way you’ll become friends with her son, because our mothers knew each other.”_

_“Grandma knew Lady Organa?”_

_“Yes, she did, but that’s not who I meant.”_

_“What? But who else would be Princess Leia’s mom?”_

_“Do you remember Grandma’s story about when she used to act as Queen for a day?”_

_“Woah, was Princess Leia’s mom_ that _queen?”_

_“You’ve got it, the very same.”_

_“No way, mom, that’s_ too _cool.”_

_“Absolutely yes way, little one. Didn’t I tell you she was the coolest?”_

\--

The silence from earlier resumed and you surrendered, splaying in your chair, letting your head fall back, letting the memories run their course.

You owed Leia nothing in this regard, but she had known your mother and that meant she knew you. You weren’t a spy now, no, but you could be. It was, after all, in your blood.

Swallowing down the lump at the back of your throat you composed yourself (and counted yourself grateful that Leia would let you fall apart as you had).

“Alright,” you said, echoing your earlier acquiescence. You tried for humor. “But I want my blaster back.”

“I can’t promise it’ll be the exact same, but I’ll do my best.”

“And I’ll do mine,” you mumbled, standing carefully.

The General put out her cigarette the same way as the first and pushed off of the desk to meet you in the middle of the room. You exchanged words very softly, so low you doubted even Yaske could hear from where he stood, a few feet behind you and to your right.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you.”

 _Ironic,_ you thought. “Me too, General.”

“ _Eclann._ ”

“I know, too quick for my own good.”

“No, just too quick for a diplomat.”

“But so were you, right?”

“You know you’ll have a place with us wherever you want once…”

“Once this blows up?”

A reassuring hand clasped your arm and she gave you a searching look. “Once a place in the Senate isn’t enough for you.”

“You think?”

“I don’t need to, not about that.”

“Okay,” you said with a sigh. “You win.”

“I always do, eventually,” she quipped back, smile finally returning, if a little ruefully.

You smiled back and she released your arm only to take you into another hug. “Okay,” you said into her shoulder, “I think it’s time to go.”

And she let you, eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm going to try to get chapter 2 up this weekend because spring break is starting, so keep your eyes peeled. Kudos make me smile, but your comments give me life, so please tell me what you think! <3  
> \--  
> More on the Senator's "home planet", [Kuat](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kuat/Legends), home of the [Kuat Drive Yards](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kuat_Drive_Yards/Legends). 
> 
> Also, the Hosnian Royals are a callback to a _delighfully_ steamy fill from the kmeme, which can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5956426) for those interested.


	2. The Sticking Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The short aftermath of Leia's proposal. A walk, some advice, some memories, and morning caf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is quite a bit shorter than I'd hoped, but I felt like sitting on it wasn't really helping anyone so here it is. Title is, of course, from the phrase "screw your courage to the sticking place", which popped into my head the other morning and wouldn't let me go.

When Leia finally let you return to your rooms for the night, she did so with the condition that you took a few datacards and an escort. You, of course, obliged.

Yaske bid you goodnight at the door and left with Dirrah back to the floor where most of the aides kept quarters. He was blessedly silent on the matter of your new employment. There would be time for that, you both knew, and that time was not tonight. When they had set off and the door closed behind you, your jedi escort turned to you for direction. You fiddled with the clasps of your cloak again. Ben watched.

Not particularly caring for his scrutiny or being all that worried that someone would see you this late, you abandoned the clasps and mumbled a hasty “never mind.” With a lazy, low wave, you signaled for your escort to head out and commence with the escorting. You’d done enough thinking tonight to last you another half-cycle at least, you mused, let someone else take the lead on the way home. For once you could afford to spare yourself the trouble.

Walking side-by-side with Ben, you let your mind drift and fill the tired silence that the two of you settled into. Names and faces pitched and rolled across your memory – potential pawns in a game you hadn’t thought you’d need to play – and the slosh made you more and more uneasy the longer you rode it. Perhaps the silence wasn’t all that helpful.

“So,” you said absently, searching for something else to focus on, “I don’t suppose you know how to do this?”

He gave another one of those sliding sideways looks that came with a raised brow and downturned mouth. “Do what?”

“Oh you know,” you said, rolling your eyes a little, “political espionage, inspiring revolution, that sort of thing.”

He hummed, pleasant and low, looking down the hall distantly and giving the question some consideration. “Wasn’t really a part of the training, no. Jedi tend to make better soldiers than spies.”

You returned the sidelong glance. “And here I thought you were supposed to be peacekeepers. That’s too bad, I guess it’s all up to me then.”

You could hear him let out a breath in the dead quiet hall. “I guess it is.”

If you had been looking at just this moment, you might have caught a subtle but sudden change in Ben’s expression as he answered: eyes narrowing, brows coming together, lips softening. If you had been looking, you might have been able to see the look break across his face, clouded, sad, and strange.

But you didn’t see, too busy snorting out a self-pitying laugh (a luxury, sure, but one you felt you’d earned), and it’s likely that even if you had you wouldn’t have recognized it. You hadn’t been looked at with that kind of concern – infant, blooming, raw like a fresh wound – in a very long time.

“Doesn’t matter, really.”

And the expression broke open wider and evolved as you said that, but again you didn’t see.

\--

You walked for a long while before you made it to the turbolift and you half-wondered as you ordered it to your floor if he knew for certain where he was going. Judging by the look of blank discomfort on his face as you exited onto your floor, you figured he didn’t.

And so, having some mercy and feeling too tired to truly enjoy toying with your escort, you slowed deliberately as you reached the entrance to your quarters. He – blessedly – seemed to catch the hint.

“Well I suppose that’s it,” you offered as you moved to palm open the door.

Ben straightened and inclined his head in a formal gesture. “I suppose it is.”

You turned your back to him and caught some sort of a murmuring just as the door opened under your hand. You looked back.

“What was that?”

He seemed reluctant to repeat himself but did anyways. “About what you said earlier,” he said, voice quiet. “I wasn’t trained in political matters, so I can’t help there.”

What was this about? Wasn’t it late enough? “As we established.”

His stiff posture softened, like he was about to make an entreaty, and the prospect of having to agree to another favor stirred a reflexive urge to shut the door in his face. “But there is something else that might help.”

You thought back to his earlier slip and wondered if it had been so much of a slip after all. _Go ahead_ , you thought, and leaned on the door jamb, giving him a challenging look, _let him try._

“Do tell, jedi.”

“It’s different for those who can sense the Force, but meditation is often very calming for the mind and body.”

You wanted to laugh, but the earnestness of his offer stopped you. A clumsy bid to get into your bed you would have expected, but this? It was…charming, in an odd way, and cynicism seemed somehow an inappropriate response. “I’m afraid I’m not practiced in it. How would I go about meditating?”

His eyes softened. “Breathe,” he said, “and think of nothing else but breathing.”

“Sounds too easy if you ask me.”

“It’s much easier said than done, I promise.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

You hadn’t even noticed that you’d been smirking until he returned the expression. “By all means.”

Silence passed between you for a beat. Ben looked away, folding his arms loosely, and the action seemed to jolt his memory because a second later he was pulling something out of the waistband of his robes.

“Forgive me, I almost forgot: the datacards.”

You made a small sound in the back of your throat and reached out to take the disks. _Of course._ “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, nodding again. Then, as you turned your back to him, “Sleep well, senator.”

You tossed a last glance back and half-joked, “I’ll do my best.”  

\--

Sleep, unsurprisingly, did not come easy.

You approached it cautiously, like an animal, stealing around it sideways and backwards: You undressed with languor, put the robes away like you never did. You washed your face in the sink instead of stepping into the sonic, letting the warm water run down your elbows and drip onto your toes. In a last ditch effort, you even brushed your hair.

But the beast was wary, and by the time you slipped into bed you felt as restless and awake as after your second cup of morning caf.

You refused to toss or turn, but held yourself still, willing your body to go numb even as your mind raced. Mostly what you thought of was useless, just cataloguing who you knew, who you trusted, and the tiny intersection of those two categories. You interrogated your memories of each person. Where were the gaps? What didn’t you know? How dearly would you have to pay for your sometimes-unfounded affections? By the end of it you had only Yaske on your side and one hell of a whiskey headache.

You thought of Ben’s advice. _Breathe,_ he’d said, _and think of nothing else but breathing_. You doubted it would put you to sleep, but if it gave you a reprieve from the mad swirl of your mind that would be enough. Anything was better than lying here with your eyes pressed tightly closed, fighting with yourself.

Twitching your limbs awake, you rolled onto your back settled in. You inhaled deeply, appreciating the sensation of your lungs filling and the pause it brought to your roiling thoughts.

The image of a blank night sky filled your mind and even the tense muscles of your face relaxed. _There,_ you thought, _not so hard after all, Mr. Jedi Knight_. Then, _oh shit_. Right. You weren’t supposed to be thinking.

So you inhaled again. The air felt cool in your lungs and buoyed your body. The image of the blank sky – starless, like the one above Coruscant – returned. You exhaled. You breathed the sky.

A rhythm settled over you like a wave. In, out, thoughts flitting across the blankness like satellites, in again, out again. It was nice, if difficult. Who knew clearing your mind took such intense concentration? You wondered idly – another satellite, this one on a fast orbit – how long Ben could do this for. Lying back or sitting up, broad shoulders square, eyes closed and face finally, impossibly immobile. You imagined him underneath your blank night sky, felt something stir somewhere at the back of your brain.

_Sleep well, senator._

And somewhere around there you finally did.

\--

_The feeling of fidgeting, warm fingers curling around your small wrist in reassurance. Bright, gold light._

_“Eclann, this is Princess Leia. Would you like to introduce yourself?”_

_“It’s nice to meet you, Princess.”_

_“Thank you, it’s nice to meet you, too.”_

_“Mom told me you know a jedi, is that true?”_

_“Yes it is. And I don’t just know him, he’s my twin brother.”_

_“Does that mean you’re a jedi, too?”_

_A laugh like a shuttle landing softly on the deck outside of the apartments on Kuat where you and your mother lived – full of relief and homecoming. A hissing release, an opening door._

_“I could have been, if I’d wanted to.”_

_“Why didn’t you?”_

_“I had other things to worry about at the time when I found out.”_

_“Like what?”_

_“Like how to beat the Empire.”_

\--

_Grey morning covering the deck outside the apartments, the same fingers around your wrist, this time less reassuring, less gentle. The soft, rhythmic tapping of boots on duracrete._

_“Time to go, honey. I know it’s early but you promised you’d be ready to go see Princess Leia.”_

_“I know, I know. I’m ready.”_

_“Good. Come on, grab your bag.”_

_“I’ve got it.”_

_“Sorry I can’t drop you off this time.”_

_“It’s okay, mom, I’m getting older anyways.”_

_“You are, Eclann, so fast.”_

_A rare, tight embrace that smells of her, ozone and caf and the lingering musk of her senate perfume. A firm hand on your shoulder, a lovingly stern voice._

_“Be good, and don’t forget to do your reading.”_

_“As long as I’m still allowed to practice with the blaster.”_

_“No point in having one without the other.”_

\--

(You stir in your sleep. This is familiar ground – an old well-trod path that always starts off like a mystery but now, oh by now it’s all falling into place, and even if you’d wanted you couldn’t quite have shaken yourself from it. The dream turns again.)

\--

 _“—you let me come to senate meetings – practically_ force _me to sit through them! You make me learn all about how the war started, make me analyze tactics and strategies and then listen to the other senator’s drone on about them! Why not let me learn this?”_

 _Anger, frustration, a misplaced adolescent desire to_ do something _._

_“Eclann, no. Don’t fight me, not on this.”_

_Fear, frustration, an instinctive parental desire to_ keep safe _._

_“What about ‘no point in one without the other?’”_

_“I taught you so you’d know, not because I wanted you to_ have _to.”_

_“Well maybe I do have to!”_

_“No, what you have to do is stay here and finish your training as an aide.”_

_“And if I don’t want to?”_

_“Well that’s just too damn bad.”_

_“_ What? _”_

_“You heard me.”_

_A silence, thick and rusty red. Grasping at threads with tired fingers, you still find reason. Her face swims in your memory. It brings you back to yourself._

_“_ Fine. _I’ll go to Leia’s.”_

_“Thank you.”_

\--

(And now you’re turning over and over and over. You don’t want to see this next part but you’re only dimly aware that you’re dreaming. No, please no, not yet, not this time—)

\--

_Blue, blue like the oceans in the holovids about Naboo, blue like the atmospheric horizon. Blue like midnight, but angry, shaking, whispering._

_“Eclann, wake up, something’s happened.”_

_Turning over and over. A hand. On your shoulder, pulling you up, smoothing your hair back, pulling you into strong arms. A voice close to your ear and the endless crashing of waves._

_“It’s about your mother, Eclann. Come on, hon, wake up, wake—”_

\--

And this time, when you do, it is different because it is only a dream.

It still makes you cry, though. That has never changed.

\--

Yaske met you for breakfast at an hour that would have felt too early even if you hadn’t drunk three glasses of whiskey and spent half the night awake.

He poured you both a cup of caf from the serving set and chat you up in the casual but clipped tone that he used for business that didn’t need your immediate attention.

“Last night’s vote is being put on a moratorium for the rest of the session. I know we expected a second go at it tonight, but it wasn’t even close so neither side see the point of hitting it too hard.”

“I know the process. I know you do a lot of work but I _have_ been paying attention for the last five years.”

“Don’t get testy, Senator. And truthfully I’m not sure of that considering that it’s actually been _seven_.”

“Alright I concede; you’re the real senator here, Yaske, I’m just your puppet. Now will you give me the good news?”

He gave a half-grin, preening, and smoothed a long hand over his slicked back hair. “Of course. The delay means that we can cancel the mad dash we had planned for this afternoon. There’s no point in trying to do all of your courting tonight if it means giving the opposition a whole two weeks to counteract it.”

“Of course,” you echoed, taking a much-needed sip of your caf.

“Which gives us in turn a good opportunity to go over the materials from the General.”

You looked numbly into your cup and mumbled the agreement again, though this time it came out as bitter as the caf. _Yes. Of course. Alright. Okay._ There had been an awful lot of agreement going around the last day cycle and, harmonious and necessary as it may have been, you felt chafed.

“There truly never is a moment of rest, is there Yaske?”

“No, senator, not for the great.”

A little laugh – he knew how to cheer you when necessary, and you were grateful for the effort. “Is that really what we are?”

“Well I’m not certain about you, I was talking about myself.”

That stirred in you a real laugh and a desire to reach out across the table and revert to how you’d been before this place with its formality and fine dining. Back when you used to pinch his neck and pull his ear and dare him to fight back. Back when he would have dared.

“Oh yes, I’d forgotten, the great puppet master who labors at the strings and makes the politicians dance.”

“It is a difficult job.”

“I guess that’s why I chose to be the puppet.”


End file.
